He gave her a wave that might as well have been a flip of the bird, and took off down the driveway. She watched him until he disappeared past the trees, then went back inside. She stabbed again at her salad before dumping it in the trash and clearing away the table. She took her time with the cleaning spray and dish cloth, making sure to get all the smudges. She moved to the stainless-steel fridge, then the fronts of the microwave and oven, the stovetop. The cabinets.
Nothing was really dirty, but she cleaned it anyway.
In the days when Jeff had lived in this house, there’d always been too much clutter, too much mess, for Stella to keep up with. It had been like living with a hurricane. Kids, dog, cat, spouse—every other creature in the house had seemed to create a swath of destruction while she ran behind with the vacuum and mop, her laundry basket overflowing. Now, with Tristan spending half the time with his dad, sometimes the only mess in this house was one she made herself.
Sometimes she left her laundry on the empty side of the bed for the whole week without putting it away. She left the cap off the toothpaste tube, didn’t put the lid down on the toilet before flushing. She bought the brand of coffee she preferred and played the music she liked best as loud as she wanted. Basically, she did everything she wanted, how she wanted it.
And she did it alone.
In the middle of the worst time, when the concept of divorce had changed from feeling like a failure to salvation, Stella had turned the idea of being alone over and over until her mind had spun with it. Would she really like it, if that’s all she had? In the end it had been Jeff who’d left her, not that she could’ve blamed him. She’d grown sick of herself by then. But in the end, she’d also decided that being alone was better than wishing she was.
The day Jeff had moved out, Tristan had been away at summer camp, and Stella had opened every window in the house even though a storm was on the way. She’d danced in the backyard, in the rain, risking being struck by lightning. She’d thrown her face up to the sky and let the rain wash everything away and make her clean.
The feeling hadn’t lasted long, but it had been long enough. Eight years later, she was still alone and Jeff had remarried. She assumed he was happy in his much bigger house and much younger wife. She didn’t really care.
The kitchen was clean. She’d run a few loads of laundry and folded most of it. She took Tristan’s, piled high in his basket, down the hall. Passed the closed door between her room and his without pausing. She set the basket just inside his bedroom door with a wince at the sour smell of teenage boy. He wasn’t allowed to eat in there anymore, not since she’d had to call the exterminator to deal with an infestation of both mice and ants. And he had strict orders to put his dirty clothes out in the hall every Monday to be washed, or suffer wearing dirty clothes all week. Or do his own laundry. Beyond that, Stella kept out of her son’s room. She relished her privacy and figured he did too.
She lingered for a minute or two now, though. It was dangerous to dwell on things the way she had done in the shower this morning. Melancholy wasn’t productive. Yet something pulled her in a step or two. He’d long outgrown his twin bed, so one of the first things Stella had done after the divorce was give Tristan her old headboard and mattress and buy herself a new bedroom set. He’d adorned the spindles with stickers and ribbons from science fairs and competitions. A few baseball caps. At the foot of the mattress, he still kept a pile of stuffed animals, shoved mostly between the mattress and the wall.
Mr. Bear. Tigger. Tristan had always preferred the soft plushies to harder toys like action figures or miniature cars. He’d spent hours with them as his backyard companions, wearing them into filth even the hottest setting in the washer couldn’t clean. Other mothers had spoken with sighs about kids attached to blankies and teddy bears, some even buying more than one identical lovey toy so their kid wouldn’t be traumatized by even a momentary loss. Tristan hadn’t ever been like that. He’d loved all his toys equally and also as noncommittally. When limbs were lost or a stuffy simply too ruined to play with, he willingly gave it up in favor of another.
That’s why it amused and touched her to see them all now. She’d have thought he’d dumped them ages ago, along with his outgrown footie pj’s and the cowboy sheets. Stella nudged the laundry basket inside the room a little farther and reached for Mr. Bear. Her mom had bought him for Tristan when he was a toddler. Mr. Bear had been stuck against the wall next to some unnamed carnival prize snake, green with blue polka dots, incongruously wearing a top hat. When Stella pulled Mr. Bear’s arm, the snake came free. So did a few of the other toys.
So did the baby.
It was one of the smallest toys, a soft sculpture baby about the size of her hand. A round, fat body, two stumpy arms and matching legs and a round head without a neck. Dimples and colored thread made the face, two wee eyes and a red kiss-print mouth. Three or four strands of orange hair. It had no gender, really, but the outfit was blue so it was meant to be a boy.
She’d grabbed it up without knowing what it was, but at the sight of that yarn hair, the stubby, floppy arms, she dropped it back onto the bed. It fell facedown, limbs akimbo.
* * *
“Where’s your baby? Where’s your baby?”
He toddles to her, two teeth proudly showing in his bottom gums, the baby clutched in his chubby fists. Blue blanket sleeper. Fluff of reddish hair. Drool in a silver thread she doesn’t even mind wiping away as she scoops him up, burying her face in the sweet scent of little boy. Her boy.
“Show Mama your baby.”
He holds up the toy, and she enfolds him into her arms, kissing him until he squirms to be put down. And she does, she puts him down, and he stumbles away from her on unsteady feet. Her boy.
Oh, her boy.
* * *
Stella left it there and went out, closing the door and locking the memories behind her.
Hours had passed since dinner. No sign of Tristan. No message, no text. Night had fully fallen, not even a hint of setting sun left for her to forgive him by. Her jaw set as she pulled out her phone to tap the screen.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Since she’d personally witnessed her son texting multiple people in different conversations while he played Xbox and watched TV and ate snacks, all at the same time, she knew the only reason he didn’t reply to her within a minute or two was because he was ignoring her. Or something had happened to him.
Stella’s mother had made a habit of saying, “Be careful” every time Stella left the house. Stella, smart-ass that she’d been, had usually answered, “Nope, I’m gonna take a lot of risks and do dangerous things.” Her mom hadn’t found that funny.
“You’ll understand,” she’d say, “when you’re a mother.”
Stella’s mother still told her to be careful every time they parted, and now a mother herself, Stella did understand. She knew all too well how easily horrible things could happen.
She paced in the dining room, looking out the front windows at the darkness. She went to the front door and opened it, looked out the screen door, then went outside. October nights were cool and alive with the sound of crickets or katydids or whatever the hell it was in the woods that made so much noise. Cicadas? Didn’t they come out only every seventeen years...?
She was freaking out. She wished for a cigarette, even one of Jen’s e-cigs. Instead, she tapped out another message.
ANSWER ME.
Another five minutes passed. An eternity. She was just about to send another message, thinking of calling the police, or at the very least Jeff, when her phone shook in her hand and played its distinctive triple ding.
ran too far
She hadn’t realized how slick her hands had become with sweat until her phone slipped from her grasp. She caught it before it could hit the sidewalk. She typed a reply. Where? I’ll come get you.
No. I??
?ll come home.
She wasn’t going to play this game with him. Instead of another text, Stella called. Tristan sounded out of breath when he answered, and she didn’t bother to identify herself. “What did I tell you about getting home before dark?”
She’d jumped on him too hard; she heard it in his reply. “Sorry.”
“I’ll come get you.”
He hesitated, panting. “Pick me up at Sheetz.”
She frowned, estimating the distance from their house to the convenience store. “You ran to Sheetz?”
“Just pick me up there. I want to get something to eat anyway.”
There was another argument there, a reminder about the sandwich she’d made for him and that he’d rejected, but what sort of shitty mother let her kid go hungry? She sighed and disconnected.
He was waiting for her at one of the outside tables, already drinking from one of those insanely huge fountain drinks and eating a burrito when she pulled into the parking lot. Bugs swooped and swarmed, dive-bombing him and the overhead lights that made him look extra pale. His hair stuck up in the back and clung to his forehead with sweat. He probably reeked.
She kept herself from hugging him by pretending she was angry. The truth was, she was just glad to see him all in one piece. Not that she forgave him—there’d be recriminations for this. There had to be. She’d specifically told him not to run too far and to be home before dark, and he hadn’t been.
But maybe she didn’t have to really punish him. Maybe her annoyance would be enough. Maybe only a few snakes had to come out of her hair. Half a momdusa, not the full-fledged explosion.
She went inside and got herself a frozen latte, even though the temperature had dropped enough to make a hot coffee drink sound better. They gave her stomachaches, but she couldn’t resist. When she came back outside, Tristan had finished his food and crumpled the garbage. He was busy tapping away at his phone, playing a game or texting or Connexing or whatever it was the kids did these days.
The car ride home was silent and stinky. She had to open the windows just to keep from choking on the overripe smell of teenage boy sweat, and Tristan turned the radio up so loud there was no chance of talking. He used to sing along with the songs, but he didn’t now. Stella did, fumbling the words, a little bit on purpose to lighten the mood between them even though she felt as though she had every right to be pissed.
She wasn’t good at letting go. Not in her regular life. It had been one of the things Jeff had complained about, a flaw she wanted to deny but deep inside knew she couldn’t. Stella liked the last word. So when they got home and into the kitchen, she couldn’t resist one final poke.
“You can take that sandwich for lunch tomorrow.”
Her son, who’d once been a tiny baby, then a toddler dragging his toy bear in the dirt, her boy who was now on his way to being a man, frowned. He shrugged and ran his fingers through his dirty hair in a way disconcertingly like his father had done when they’d first met. It was a panty twister, that move, and he didn’t know it yet, thank God.
He looked at the fridge. Then at her, for the first time in a long while meeting her gaze without letting it slide away. “I never liked those sandwiches, Mom.”
Stubbornly, Stella shook her head. “You loved—”
“No, Mom,” Tristan told her firmly. When had his voice dropped? No more cracking, no more sudden shifts in pitch. “That wasn’t me. That was never me. I just never said anything about it until now.”
He left her in the kitchen and thudded his big feet up the stairs, and in a few minutes the shower started to run. The pipes squealed. Stella stood without moving, her eyes closed, for a long time, remembering.
Then she threw the sandwich in the trash.
CHAPTER FIVE
Some trips are focused, pinpointed. Specific. Stella arrives, finds what she’s looking for and leaves a day or two later. Sometimes she comes home disappointed—Stella might have broad standards and eclectic taste in men, but when it comes to flying she does have standards, nevertheless.
On some trips, like this one to Minnesota, flying is simply a bonus. The Mall of America is a short shuttle ride from both the airport and the luxurious casino hotel where she’s booked a king-size room. She’s planned a weekend of shopping. Good food in fancy restaurants. Even a little gambling.
Normally, Stella travels carry-on only, but this time she has checked an empty suitcase that she will fill with all of her holiday shopping. The twenty-five-dollar checked-bag fee is worth it, when you consider what she’d have to pay to ship all of her purchases. She spends hours and hundreds of dollars, visiting every store at her leisure and losing herself in the comparison of gifts. Finding the perfect thing for her parents, sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephews. Coworkers. She even picks up a gift for Jeff and Cynthia, not because she wants to, particularly, but because Cynthia always sends her something and it’s begun to feel as though the expectation of receiving one in turn is easier to fulfill than dealing with the unspoken resentment.
For Tristan, she falters. He has so much already. Though Stella vowed to herself she would never play the game of tug-of-war with Jeff about which parent is the “cooler” one, they have both gone overboard with the gifts since the divorce. Tristan owns every device, every video game system with all the accessories, sometimes in duplicate so he has one in each house and doesn’t have to suffer the loss of his toys. There’ve been musical instruments and lessons. Sports equipment. Trips.
But what, she wonders as she goes from store to store to store, would her son really like? The problem is, Stella really doesn’t know. The sandwich she threw in the trash haunts her, and she second-guesses herself, picking things up and putting them down. She comes away with very little, telling herself there’s still time, but she knows too well how that’s not always true.
The trip isn’t totally without self-indulgence. In the fancy lingerie shop, she springs for a pretty merry widow corset set in a deep wine color. It gives her magnificent cleavage. Paired with matching panties and sheer stockings, her sexiest heels, she’s going to shine like a diamond.
In her hotel room Stella packs away all her purchases in the empty suitcase and lays out her clothes for the night. The new lingerie looks even better in the hotel room’s far more flattering light than it did in the dressing room. She straightens her back, squares her shoulders. Juts a hip. She knows how to showcase what she has now in a way she never did until a few years ago. Then again, until a few years ago, Stella favored high-waisted cotton granny panties and full-coverage bras, and the last time she’d worn sexy lingerie had been the first night of her honeymoon. And that had been no more than a silky nightgown with spaghetti straps.
Jeff had always said he didn’t see the point in spending so much money on something you were only going to take off right away, and Stella had believed he meant it. Of course, later, when she’d stumbled on his browser history and saw the kinds of porn he’d been watching, she could only chuckle a little at how all the women in his favorite videos had worn garter belts and stockings, crotchless panties, bras with the nipples cut out. By then there was no way Stella would’ve kissed him on the mouth, much less sucked his cock, and lingerie was out of the question.
No, she hadn’t begun wearing sexy scanties for men, even if most of the ones she found did seem to like her choices. Stella began wearing these scraps of silk and satin for herself. When she wears something pretty, even under her rattiest jeans or T-shirt, it reminds her that her body still works. She breathes, she laughs and sighs; she has orgasms.
She’s alive.
In front of the full-length mirror, she smooths the satin over her belly and cups her breasts for a moment, lifting them. Her nipples tighten as she watches herself. She tries on a smile, slow and seductive. She turns to look over her shoulder at her ass, which will never be her favorite feature but look
s pretty good in the wispy panties. The best part of this outfit is that there’s no hint of it beneath her regular clothes, but it’s almost guaranteed to be an eyeball popper when she gets undressed.
Stella draws in a breath, hands flat on her belly. Her ribs twinge a little as they expand against the corset’s metal bones, but it’s not laced so tight that she feels faint. She runs her hands up her sides, pressing lightly, waiting for the pain that never seems to go away, though there’s no reason for her to ache. Then she slides a hand between her legs, stroking lightly. Her clit pulses. Pushing her fingers inside her panties, Stella finds slick heat. Anticipation is the best aphrodisiac.
She’s packed a couple choices, but decides on a simple black dress of clinging fabric. Long sleeves and a demure neckline are offset by the thigh-high slit that will give a tantalizing peek at the tops of her stockings if she crosses her legs just right. Her jewelry is simple to match—a pair of silver hoops in her ears, a matching bracelet of hammered metal and a silver herringbone chain at her throat. She pulls her hair into a careful French knot, sprays on a hint of perfume and she’s ready to go.
There was a time when, if she’d seen a woman like herself sitting alone in a high-end restaurant, reading while she ate her expensive dinner, Stella would’ve felt sorry for her. Now she’s been on enough shitty dates to appreciate and understand the luxury of being able to enjoy a good steak and a good book at the same time without having to force a conversation. She declines the waiter’s offer of a cocktail, but a few minutes later, he returns.
“The gentleman—” he points to a man several tables over “—would like to send you a glass of wine.”